by Tim Sandlin
"Je ne vous connais pas."
I threw my shoulder into the door and blew her back across the room.
Frenchmen sprouted from all over the place — the couch, the kitchen, a door I think led to a bedroom. In two seconds, seven of them ranging from five to eighty-five clustered together over by the flickering TV that was set on a game show where three girls tried to get a date with one boy. Big eyes ran in the family. High foreheads. Five females and two males stared at me in various degrees of fear and disgust, and the most disgusted of the bunch was the matriarch. I've observed that Paris has an amazing number of old women under five feet tall, with curled spines. I have two theories: (1) French women lose more height as they age than Wyoming women, or (2) hardships during World War II caused an entire generation of stunted growth. Whatever the cause of her seahorse shape, that old woman wasn't about to take any guff off me.
Soon as the old lady paused for breath, I said, "Odette Clavel lives here, right? Where is she?"
All seven cut loose a maelstrom of language. The littlest girl was asking questions of the father, who seemed to know the answers until his wife told him he was wrong. The girl I'd bounced across the room with the door looked eighteen and pretty. Where the family eyes made Grandma owlish, on the girl they created an open, innocent face, like you see on velvet paintings.
Because she was the prettiest person there, I addressed her. "Whoa, dammit. I'm not here to hurt you. I need Odette Clavel. This is twenty-four-oh-six rue St. Jacques, apartment three-oh-two, right?"
Amid the squawking, a boy of twelve or so was pushed to the front. He wore khaki shorts and a tan nylon jacket with a school emblem on the breast. Turns out, he was the only member of the family to speak English. The kid was a brave little cuss. I don't know if, at twelve, I would have stood up to a madman who broke through the door.
"Sir, my father and mother wish to know why you have crashed into our home."
"I'm looking for Odette Clavel." I showed the boy the address on the taxi card. The others gathered around, throwing in their two cents.
I said, "Apartment three-oh-two."
A murmur ran through the collective family. "We live in two-oh-two," the boy said.
"How can that be?"
The teenage girl jabbered to the boy, who nodded, then turned his attention back to me. "In France, the ground floor is ground floor. The story above that is number one."
I counted in my head. "So, the fourth floor is the third floor?"
The boy said, "That is so." The old lady scowled.
I said, "Oh."
"Your quarry must live one story above us," said the boy.
How embarrassing can you get? I looked from face to face, the old dwarf to the father to the pretty girl to the child. Not a one of them saw the humor of my mistake.
"Wrong apartment." I backed on out, checking to see if I'd damaged their door. Luckily, it looked fine. "You folks go back to whatever you were doing."
Why would an entire nation call the second floor the first? Anyone might have made the same mistake, only it wasn't anyone. It was me. I'd not only knocked on the wrong apartment, I'd used violence to gain entry. I felt like slime. That little girl could well have a tainted view of Americans the rest of her life. I don't mind her hating the United States if she bases her hate on our government, but this hate would be based on me, personally. That's not good.
As I walked up the stairs, I tried to come up with a way to make it up to the family. I could give them money, but that seemed like such an American way to apologize. I could go back and actually apologize, only I didn't think they would open the door to me now. They'd had enough.
Nobody was home at the real 302. I knocked. I waited. No answer. Odette's door only had two locks and I might have been able to kick it in, but that felt like a bad idea for a man who claims to learn from his mistakes.
Instead, I sat on the fourth — their third — floor landing and fished through my saddlebag for a Bic pen and a receipt from Starbucks in the Denver airport. I wrote I am sorry I intruded. Please forgive my lack of tact, which is all will fit on a Starbucks receipt. I went down a flight and slipped the note under their door. There was just enough of a gap to push it through. Before I let go of the receipt, someone inside snatched it from my hand.
The lobby door across from the post office boxes had a doorbell. I rang it and, from inside, a dog went ballistic. I can't stand little house dogs who go insane at the knock on the door or ring of the bell. My mom has a dog like that. Fergie. Long-haired, fat-lipped, pug ugly. More loved than me. Mom knits her sweaters. Every time I'm home I want to stick a dowel rod up Fergie's butt and mop the floor.
The woman who answered the door had a mustache. Sagging arm skin exposed by a sleeveless blouse with a used Kleenex stuffed under the shoulder strap. Unfiltered cigarette held between her lips by a snarl. Yellow fingers with painted nails. Your typical apartment manager anywhere in the world.
"I'm a friend of Odette Clavel's. She lives on the fourth floor. I guess, third to you."
The woman slammed the door shut.
I counted to ten so as to prove I hadn't lost my temper, then I rang the bell again.
17.
Odette Clavel rattled her first key in the bottom lock, turning it two full turns counterclockwise. She pulled that key out and stuck another that looked like an old skeleton key in the top lock, which turned the other way one full circle. She picked up the beaded purse at her feet and pushed open the door. Light sliced into her small apartment before she entered and kicked the door shut, plunging the room back into relative darkness.
Odette cooed softly, "Robert, Robert, Je suis là."
A cat meowed from her bedroom. Odette dropped the keys into the purse and shrugged her sweatshirt off over her shoulders. "Robert, mon minou, tu t'es ennuyé?"
Robert, the white Persian, stretched into the living room/kitchen combination, his tail held high. He strutted to the couch and sharpened his claws while Odette clunked her purse down on the counter. A wooden match flared, then settled into a steady flame that Odette used to light a tapered candle. She blew out the match and said, "Pauvre bébé, tu m'as manqué aussi."
Robert rubbed in and out of Odette's ankles while she crossed to a bookshelf and flipped a switch on the CD player. The room was filled by Miles Davis making love to his trumpet. Odette swayed in the music while Robert's mews grew louder, more in the way of demands. To the beat, Odette kicked a red Ked past the lamp on the end table into the corner. The other Ked flew into the shadows.
"Ah, Robert, t'es un chat super."
Odette put one hand on her belly, Napoleon-style, and danced into the bedroom. A few seconds later, she danced back into the living room, minus the skirt. Wearing only bra and panties now, she thrust forward to the music, swinging her hair to the front, then leaned back and boogied her breasts from side to side.
"Allez, Miles!"
The music was "So What" from Kind of Blue. Odette wrapped herself in the notes, swaying gently, her eyes half closed. She tossed her glasses on the counter, then danced into the kitchen side of the room, led there by Robert's insistent mews.
Her body undulating like willows in a stream, she opened the refrigerator. Soft light reflected off her skin, throwing shadows on her ribs and the shallow dent of her collarbone. She bent at the waist to search the bottom shelf. "Voilà, minou."
She pulled out a pint bottle of heavy cream, popped the top, and poured a stream into the flat-bottomed bowl on the floor beside the refrigerator. Robert let out a meow and stuck his nose up against the cream's surface, his tongue darting in and out, lapping away. Odette put the cream back in the refrigerator, hip-bumped the door shut, and dropped onto her belly beside Robert.
Together, they shared the cream, each lapping from one side of the bowl. Odette's tongue slipped out, in, out. Her eyes closed, savoring the texture of cream.
Miles wailed. Odette and Robert lapped. "So What" ended and "Freddie Freeloader" started. Odette flipp
ed onto her back on the linoleum floor. Her arms flowed to the music, up, around, wrists swiveling somewhat like a horizontal hula, or maybe a belly dancer. She dipped fingertips in the cream bowl and let droplets run into her belly hollow. She picked Robert up and set him on her crotch, on her panties, facing her head. As Robert darted his tongue in and out of the cream on her navel, Odette closed her eyes and shuddered. She dipped her fingertips again and sprinkled a trail of cream drops up her flat stomach across her sternum and into the cleft between her breasts. Robert licked his way into cleavage.
I turned on the lamp. "That's about all I can take."
"You." Odette sat up, which upset Robert's balance, causing him to bury his claws in her flesh, causing Odette to yelp and flail at the cat stuck to her chest.
"You always practice animal rituals when you come home?" I asked.
Odette extricated the claws with a minimum of scarring. "Only when I am alone." She stood and grabbed a dish towel to blot her breasts. The bra was the sexy kind that left skin exposed above the nipple and the exposed skin was pink, lighter than the skin on her arms. It looked soft as a bubble gum bubble.
Odette dropped the towel onto the counter and waited with her arms at her sides, staring at me where I sat on the couch with my hat in my lap. I'd been napping. We held the mutual staredown a full minute.
"I paid money to take a leak," I said.
"What is leak?"
"Piss. Can you believe that? And the coffee in this country tastes like melted-down snow tires."
"Our coffee is the finest in the world."
"If you folks are so proud of your coffee, why not sell a whole cup at a time?"
I studied Odette closely. I hadn't gotten a chance to look at her good the night we had sex. The bra and panties were black, so she didn't totally go against the French color scheme. Her legs belonged on a teenager while her neck was the neck of a woman. Had the circumstances been better, I would have loved her for her neck alone. She had nice-sized breasts, for a short girl. A lot of your short girls are fairly breastless, not that it bothers me. I'd lots rather see a woman's bare back than her boobs. Sometimes, I'll sleep with a bunny just so I can look at her back.
"Where's my buckle?"
She slid her glasses back on. Apparently, they made her feel more dressed. "It's not here."
"I know that much."
With the couch lamp on, Odette scoped out the apartment, which had obviously been searched. I didn't trash the place. I'm not that kind of boy. But I did search thoroughly and not everything was put back exactly as I'd found it.
"You have flour on your face," she said.
I did what anyone would do and rubbed a hand over my cheek.
"Your chin," she said. "And a spot on your forehead. I can't believe you thought I flew back from Colorado and hid your belt buckle in the flour bin."
"You might have come home this afternoon, after you knew I was in town."
"I didn't. Are you planning to rape me because if you're not I'd like a cup of tea."
"You're not in any danger."
"I know." She opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Glacier water. She screwed off the top and emptied the bottle into a cast iron teapot on the stove. "I could have had you deported this afternoon."
I stood and walked to the counter so it was between us, but I could still see all of her. My legs had gone numb while I slept, sitting on her couch, waiting. "Why didn't you?"
She glanced up from the bulk tea she was spooning out of the tin. "You have the nice bottom."
She spooned the tea into this wicker cone thing with a handle. It seemed like an odd way to make tea.
"You didn't have me arrested and booted out of France because you like my bottom?"
"I like the way it fits your denim jean."
When the water boiled, she turned off the heat and dropped the cone in the pot so its lip balanced on the pot lip. It didn't look as efficient as a string stapled on a bag, but you have to give foreigners credit for ingenuity. She took a lemon from the refrigerator and opened a drawer to pull out a tiny knife.
"I think you wanted me to find you," I said. "You expected me to be here when you came home."
"I thought perhaps you would be hidden outside the front door." She pointed the knife at my neck. "I certainly did not expect you on my divan. How did you get in?"
"The woman downstairs has a set of keys."
"The concierge?"
"She didn't tell me her name."
Odette cut the lemon into eighths. "Mademoiselle Frangot despises everyone. Why would she let you into my apartment?"
"You'd be amazed what people will do when you threaten to kill their dog. I have to search you now."
Odette's mouth formed into a hint of a smile. She held her arms out at her sides, the cutting knife still in the fingers of her right hand.
"Okay, cowboy. Search me."
I felt stupid threatening to search a woman wearing nothing but a bra and panties. These weren't the kind of panties Mica used to wear, either, the cotton kind where you could hide small items, like a cigarette. If Odette had had a quarter stuffed in her panties I could have called it, heads or tails. She stood there, smiling slightly, waiting to see what I would do. She was considerably more comfortable in her underwear in front of a stranger than I would have been.
"Where do you think I have your precious buckle secreted?"
"Your purse there. I'll have to look through your purse."
"If you must."
Odette got out china cups and saucers while I dumped her beaded purse onto the counter. The thought of drinking tea from real cups on saucers kind of excited me. It was like being sophisticated.
"Do you take cream?" she asked.
I flashed on drops of cream across her pink belly. "Uh, no, I guess not. Whatever's standard around here. How do you drink it?"
"Without."
"That's fine by me."
Miniature Kleenex pack, birth control wheel, key chain from Disney World, address book, leather wallet too small to hide a championship buckle, cell phone, Advil, Altoids, William James's Emotions in a heavily thumbed paperback, fancy ink pen, a hotel key card from the Boulder Inn, nail scissors, a nostril stud, a small bottle of perfume with French writing on the label — no buckle. Robert jumped on the counter to walk amidst the clutter. I rubbed the cat behind his ears and tried to picture what Odette was like based on her stuff. She wasn't a barrel racer or a bunny, and that put her outside my range of experience.
Odette brought my tea over and we stood facing each other across the counter. I started to put junk back into her purse, but she said, "Never mind. I know where it all goes."
The tea was okay, I guess. Basically, it tasted like weak coffee. Miles Davis ended and Chet Baker started. I'll wager there's not one bull rider in a hundred knows Chet Baker when he hears it.
"Where's the boyfriend?" I asked.
"Bernard and I had a fight. On account of you."
"Bernard? I can't believe you're sleeping with a guy named Bernard."
She eyed me through her tea steam. The more I got used to them, the more I liked what the glasses did to her eyes.
"He knows enough English to catch your insinuation this afternoon."
"I thought I was pretty direct."
She blew across the surface of her tea. "I told him I like you."
That was the most amazing statement I'd heard all day.
"From your comments he realized we made love."
I snorted into my tea. "Made love? Your English is weak, honey. I've had a fair amount of sex in my life — average for a bull rider my age, anyway — and I can say with no doubt that was the worst fuck I've ever been involved in."
"It wasn't so bad."
"I've had baseball gloves were more emotional."
Odette's eyes flashed. I'd hurt her feelings and she was one of those women who reacts to hurt feelings with anger. "You criticize me based on Giselle. I was emotional. If you'd stopped ogling he
r for five minutes you would have known."
She snatched up my cup even though I wasn't through. "I can't believe you didn't notice I was flowing with emotion."
"I missed it."
She rinsed the cups, savagely. "No one has ever before said I am bad sex."
"Well, I'm saying it."
"What do you expect? You make love like the dead. My husband is American and he doesn't lie there as if he is a sculpture. Maybe it is a cowboy technique." Her husband being American explained a lot about the way she talked.
"It's what you and Giselle told me to do."
"When having sex, do you always obey orders from the woman?"
That surprised me. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do."
"No wonder your wife left you."
The conversation had turned on its head. I had gone from the righteous party whose precious property had been filched to the defensive one, accused of not satisfying my wife. I would have explained if I'd known the truth, but the fact is I don't know. Odette might be right. Mica enjoyed creative lovemaking as a teenager. Senior year, she'd been a damn nymph. Queen of the lunch break quickie. The best I ever met at giving head in a moving four-wheel-drive. Throughout our first marriage and midway into the second, she'd been enthusiastic when it came to off postures and cavities, but about the time she turned twenty-three her sexual growth spurt ground to a halt, at least with me. God knows what she did with her Pilates teacher. With me, sex had the spontaneity of a rodeo parade — do this, do that, Mica comes, do that the other way, I come, she says, "Get off, you're crushing my boobs," I roll over, sleep.
The last time we had relations she wore headphones and listened to a book on tape throughout the event — Women Who Run With the Wolves. It took one whole side of a cassette to get her off. I don't think she would have ever made it had it been a CD instead of a tape.
"If you will excuse me," Odette said. "I am going to bed." She walked out of the kitchen, turned off the music, and went into her bedroom. Robert and I followed.
In contrast to the semi-neat living room, the bedroom was a pit. The closet was small and she made up for the lack of space by piling clothes on the floor. If the piles had a system, I didn't see it. There was a bookcase crammed two-deep with books that were ninety percent French. The few titles I could read were philosophical and of no interest. Her desk was so cluttered with papers and catalogues I'd been into my second search before I found a laptop buried under the junk.
